Sustainable Forest Management - Forest Certification

As Part of Our Continued Commitment to Sustainable Forest Management...

Abitibi-Consolidated Company of Canada, Fort William Woodlands is proud to announce that the Spruce River Forest, near Thunder Bay, Ontario has been certified under the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standard CAN/CSA Z809-02. This standard is Canada's national standard for certifying that a forest is being managed in a sustainable manner. In order to become certified, the company developed a Sustainable Forest Management Plan (SFM plan), which and addresses the range of social, environmental, and economic issues critical to the long-term health and vitality of the forest. The SFM plan was developed to ensure that Abitibi Consolidated's forest management practices show continuous improvement based on a higher level of public accountability associated with the CSA standard. The SFM plan was developed through a process that included public consultation, and verification through an independent third party audit. The Spruce River Forest was also re-registered to meet the ISO 14001 environmental management system standard.

The CSA Standard requires adherence to a suite of broadly accepted Canadian criteria for evaluating sustainable forest management - that is the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers' (CCFM) set of Sustainable Forest Management criteria. The criteria contain many key aspects of forest management including:

1. Conservation of Biodiversity
2. Maintenance and Enhancement of Forest Ecosystem Conditions and Productivity
3. Conservation of Soil and Water Resources
4. Forest Ecosystem Contributions to Global Ecological Cycles
5. Multiple Benefits to Society
6. Accepting Society's Responsibility for Sustainable Development

Each of these criteria has a number of "CSA SFM elements" that further define the criteria, and were addressed during development of the SFM plan. In order to meet the requirements of the standard, Fort William Woodlands worked with the public to identify local values, goals, indicators and objectives that reflected the national criteria and then incorporated them into the SFM plan and practices.

Your opinion matters

We would like to know how you feel about sustainability issues on the Spruce River Forest. What values are important for the management of the forest? What should the forest look like in the future? How should sustainability be measured? Your opinion can help shape the future.

Print and Mail Public Opinion Survey (489 KB)


You comments are welcome at any time

Comments received will be documented during our annual management review and during the development of our next Forest Management Plan (FMP) scheduled to begin early in 2009.